The True Church is the Persecuted Church (Part 1)

This sermon was preached on 2/20/11 by Pastor Sam Adams at Independence Baptist Church in Belleview, Florida. This is the third of seven sermons in the series "The Church that Jesus Built."

Bible text: 2 Timothy
3:12

This third message in the series, The Church That Jesus Built, may be the most powerful and compelling of the series, as after doctrinally defining and separating the true historic church from the false churches, it delves into the great persecutions that the early Christians suffered during the first three centuries of the Church age, and explains how though there were false teachers that tried to pervert the true faith, and heresies that did gain ground among Christians that failed to guard their doctrine as they had been warned, and although there were doctrinal disagreements even in the early days of the church, there was one defining doctrine that characterized the early church, that all Christians of that day knew to be true; this was the doctrine that more than any other brought such terrible hatred of Christians and persecution from Rome, and a doctrine that today's apostasizing church has completely betrayed: the doctrine of the separation of Church and state.

The true church that Jesus built and that He has preserved against the "gates of hell" (i.e., false religion & false churches) are those who through the centuries and to the present hour have preserved and stood firm on this doctrine.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8Vjf1IwIqE